


Tears

by LadyofShalott



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-01
Updated: 2012-08-01
Packaged: 2017-11-11 04:04:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/474312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyofShalott/pseuds/LadyofShalott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Crowley became Crowley</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tears

**Author's Note:**

> Crowley belongs to Kripke & Co., I'm just borrowing him. No harm is intended and no profit is made.

He cannot abide tears. They remind him of the ocean, and it is torture for him to remember the tang of the salt spray and the cool of the water, because he knows he can never truly go back. The sea was taken from him many lifetimes ago by one who no longer walks the earth. 

He was in the habit of shedding his pelt and walking in the light of the full moon as a human, with the cool salt air caressing his bare skin, when one night he came upon a young woman walking the rocky beach, shedding tears for her love who had been lost at sea in a vicious storm. He offered what comfort he could, and sang her to sleep in the language of his kind. In the morning, she thought it was all a dream, because while she slept, he wrapped himself in his pelt and returned to his true form. This continued for many nights, as the moon waned and waxed and waned again. One night, she joined him on the beach, but there were no tears in her eyes. He thought that he had never seen a creature more beautiful, and he, a being who had never experienced love before, fancied himself in love with this mortal woman. 

Many tides came and went, and more cycles of the moon. The nights became shorter, the air became warmer, and one morning after he and his Bonnie had made love on the beach, he woke to find both her and his pelt gone. She came back bearing food as the sun warmed the horizon, but she gave no indication that she knew what had happened to his pelt, nor even that she knew what he was. 

Trapped on land as he was, he would not leave the seaside. When he was alone, he wept. At night, by the light of the moon, his own kind came to him. _She has it_ they told him. _You must reclaim it and come back to us, brother._ He searched, well aware of the futility but paying it no mind. He chose a human name and was married to his human female, and still he did not find what he sought. She bore him a son who grew to loathe him. As the child grew older, the man's longing to return to the sea grew ever stronger, until he could bear it no longer. 

It happened one night that he found himself at a crossroads, where he fell to the ground and wept and cursed her with the light of the crescent moon providing pitiful comfort. A shadow fell across his vision, and he looked up to see a man with yellow eyes, dressed all in black. _Let me help you_ , the demon said. _I can help you find that which you seek, and I can rid you of your human burden. In ten years, I will come to collect, but ten years is a long time._

For one who has lost his will to live, ten years is a very long time. The voice of the sea was with him always, whispering, calling, screaming for him to return. He ached to obey her voice; longed to feel her cool embrace as he dove into her depths. When the demon shared the location of his pelt, he rushed to find it. She had buried it in an iron box near the foundation of their home. When he removed it from its prison and wrapped himself in it, absolutely nothing happened. Its magic had been leached away by the cold iron, and he was certain that he felt what remained of his heart shatter. He wept until the tears ran dry. He would not shed another tear for many years.

When his hateful son was lost at sea and drowned, he said a silent thank you to the demon and to the ocean who swallowed him. When his wife, the devious bitch, was arrested and accused of witchcraft, he gave the testimony that damned her, and when they burned her as a witch, he laughed while the tongues of flame licked her skin. Her screams were a balm to his tortured soul, and he realized that the fire was nearly as much of a comfort to him as the sea had been. The ache that he had borne those many years away from the ocean began to ease.

When the demon came, he went willingly. His mentor called him Crowley, and taught him everything he knew. Crowley expanded that knowledge. Humans were easy, and Crowley was good at making deals. He was also very good at collecting, and if humans wept when he came to collect, he burned their eyes dry. Their tears coaxed out his distant memory of the sea, and the salt spray, and the cool of the water. Their tears reminded him that he could never go back. Crowley cannot abide tears... not even his own.


End file.
